Thursday, December 8, 2011

Infographics for Your Pleasure

"In 1969, less than 20% of the public supported legalizing marijuana. Today, the figure’s around 50% (and growing). And it’s not like pot is the huge generational divide it used to be. Yeah, the young’uns are likely to favor legalization (62% of Americans 18 to 29) but so are their parents, aunts, and uncles (56% of Americans 30 to 49).

State legislators are starting to get it, too. Sixteen states and the District now allow people to use pot for medicinal purposes. Note that the states are clustered almost exclusively on the East and West coasts, unsurprisingly..."(via Fast Co)

The Science of Lines:

I've always been a fan of the single-line method.

"The wait feels endless. The checkout line hasn't moved in 10 minutes. Why did you pick this line? But you can't risk jumping into another queue that may be slower. Tick, tick, tick. Maybe you don't even want this sweater. Would it be quicker to bail and buy it at home online?

The retail checkout line may be tedious any time of year, but it is worse at the holidays, when stores are packed and people are more likely to wait it out to meet a Dec. 25 deadline than walk away empty handed.

Several retailers are trying new approaches to get shoppers through more gracefully as online shopping threatens to continue siphoning off sales. Nearly half of U.S. consumers say they plan to shop online this holiday season, up from about a third last year, according to a recent survey from consulting firm Deloitte.

Much of the work grows from more nuanced understandings of how people perceive waiting in line. Shoppers tend to become impatient quickly and fail to take into account key indicators of what may slow down a line. They experience remorse when they feel they've chosen the wrong (i.e. slower) line. And they prefer to choose their own line rather than wait in a single-file line for the next available register—even though that set-up has proven to be faster, research on queuing shows..."(WSJ)

"The superpower analogy might sound like a rhetorical device, but Walmart really does resemble a nation (albeit a miserly dictatorship where no one would ever want to live). Consider the evidence: If revenue passed for GDP, Walmart would have the 25th largest economy in the world. It imports as many Chinese goods as the entire nation of Germany and more than Russia and Taiwan combined. And its more than 2 million employees could form the second largest military on the planet--bigger even than that of the United States (but without the top-notch benefits)."(via Fast Co)

"As new Republican contenders have emerged, taken off and then crashed in the polls, Mitt Romney’s support has remained one of the few constants in the nomination race. And yet the GOP can’t seem to fully embrace him. The National Post’s graphics team takes a look at the ups and downs of the race so far."(National Post via ChartPorn)